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Sunday, 21 August 2016

DnD: Return to Previous Checkpoint

When the team awakes, they have a nice, low cost IKEA breakfast, then gather up their things and continue on to Neverwinter. Along the way, Xavros continues with the composition of his little ditty about their adventures, regularly interrupted by Dweezil's questions about Neverwinter. For the most part, Xavros provides satisfactory answers as various other travellers pass them by. Celkini keeps busy chatting with a silent and observant Asher, gathering any flowers, butterfly wings, elf root and mushrooms she can. There is talk of hiring a cart and mule in Neverwinter in order to retrieve the goods in the goblin cave.

The new DnD players learn that we cannot kill random travellers on the road in hopes of gaining the XP we need to level. Good to know.

When they stop to set up camp, Celkini happily makes a mushroom stew with the fungus she gathered along the way. She might have added a little too much elf root. The next day she makes a lovely berry compote with berries that might have been over ripe. But everybody eats what she makes because why would any want to hurt that cute little gnome's feelings?

The second night, Xavros decides to stay up and take first watch and works on the final touches of his new song, while Celkini chatters on. Our DM takes an excessively long time to determine our fate, leading us to believe that we're gonna die. Finally, on Dweezil's watch, despite his shitty roll, Dweezil turns just in time to avoid a head bashing from a ghoulish creature. He rolls away and looks up to see three more creatures coming out of the woods. Screaming, he at least has the good sense to put out the fire in hopes of disrupting the ghouls' vision. But the ghouls are unperturbed by this. Two of them score a hit against Dweezil, their claws causing him serious damage.

Everyone wakes up at the commotion, jumping to action. Celkini, in a groggy stupor, stumbles towards one of the ghouls, but utterly fails (rolls two damn "1"s) to do anything useful other than bumping into Dweezil and pushing him out of the way of the next ghoul strike. Ben comes in to avenge her with a mighty 22/20 for 1 bite damage. Asher leaps up, grabs his spear and runs toward the creatures, missing his attempt to sweep the leg, but getting in another hit with his second strike. Akilah steps in between Dweezil and the attackers.

She does not miss, surprisingly. Instead, she scores a pretty sweet hit, dropping one ghoul to its knees and almost killing it. Dweezil follows up for the kill. Two of the ghouls turn their vicious claws to Akilah, but her armour takes the brunt of the damage. Xavros runs in and grabs Celkini by the scruff of the neck, picking her up and planting her back on her feet slightly away from the battle. Asher damages one ghoul, but is bitten on the hand by another. The infection is probably setting in immediately and amputation should be strongly considered.

Xavros is obviously still a bit sleepy because, after casting inspiration on Asher, Xavros actually steps forward and attacks, after dusting off his rapier. Celkini follows up with a minor hit. Dweezil takes another hit. He's close to going down, but we thwart our DM with another good saving throw. Unfortunately, the next attack from the creature is a critical hit. Dweezil goes down hard. Akilah must avenge him. She gets her second wind and gets in a hit. Asher dodges an attack while one ghoul begins to feed on Dweezils unconscious form.

Akilah screams in horror, but as she watches the ghastly show, a ghoul strikes her with its paralytic attack. Luckily, her armour takes the blow and she's able to quickly shake off the paralysis. Akilah must make an important decision: vengeance against the bitch that just attacked her? Or save Dweezil? Or both! Because she's mad now! She knocks away Dweezil's friend Mr. Nibbles and paints herself in Dweezil's blood before taking out the second ghoul.

Asher doesn't have much left in him. The last ghoul is almost dead, but so is Asher. He ain't got time for its shit. He stabs it through the eye and leans heavily against his spear.

Heals all around, the team pulls itself back together, hugging awkwardly over their near death experience. This has clearly brought them closer together. They fall asleep to the tune of the latest addition to Xavros' Ballad of the Not Quite Heroes.

We are poly-gamists

They say that coal under intense pressure makes diamonds. Well what kind of pressure makes glitter? The pressure of an army of enemies, the pressure of overwhelming PvP and PvEodds, the pressure of defeating that boss when all bets are against you. But when that pressure is on, we explode.Fabulously.